1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing system and printing method for issuing a print instruction, from a client apparatus, for a document registered in a print service.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, businesses offering services provided on the Internet as a cloud service that use cloud computing have expanded. Even a print service is desired to be provided on the Internet.
As one print service using a cloud computer, there is a system in which a document to be printed is transmitted as a document attached to an e-mail from a mobile terminal to a print service, and registered. In this system, an identification number (to be referred to as a PIN code) issued upon registering the document is input to a printer to acquire the document corresponding to the PIN code from the server and pull-print.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-250001 proposes a method of storing document data, received from a mobile terminal, in a print server. In this method, a URL indicating the storage location of the document data is transmitted to the mobile terminal by e-mail. The mobile terminal displays the URL without conversion or after converting it into a barcode. A printer receives the URL, acquires the document data present at the location indicated by the URL from the server, and prints.
A PIN code usually has a predetermined period of validity for the sake of security. After the lapse of the period of validity, the PIN code is invalidated. Since a PIN code is transmitted to a document registration source terminal, it is presumed (considered) that only the user who registered the document knows the PIN code. However, the period of validity is short, for security against leakage and the like. In an office or the like where many users share a printer, a user may not be able to input a PIN code, that is, a print instruction within the period of validity, and the PIN code may become invalid. In the method of issuing a PIN code, a user needs to manually input a PIN code via (from) the operation panel of a printer, impairing the operability.
In the method of issuing the URL of the save location of a document, a user needs to input characters other than numerals, impairing the operability much more than by the PIN code. In the method of converting a URL into a barcode, a program for converting a URL into a barcode needs to be installed in a mobile terminal, and a printer also requires a device or processing for reading a barcode. In the invention disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-250001, an issued URL does not have the period of validity, and a user who has issued a print instruction is not authenticated. This may be a security hole in the print server.
In the above methods, the user needs to go to the printer and operate it, which is inconvenient. For example, these methods have not solved the problem that a PIN code may become invalid in an environment where a printer is shared and is not always available.